Monday Quotes: Male Protagonists in YA

Since most young adult authors seem to be women, it’s only natural that the majority of main characters in YA is also female. Of course I’m not necessarily taking into consideration the many multiple-POV stories (even most of those start with the female character and in others), but in terms of my bookshelves, it’s definitely mostly girl-focused stories with a major male love interest. So today’s roundup of “Monday Quotes” to start your week highlights five of our favorite male protagonists in YA.

Miles from “Looking for Alaska” by John Green

“It always shocked me when I realized that I wasn’t the only person in the world who thought and felt such strange and awful things.”

“I found myself thinking about President William McKinley, the third American president to be assassinated. He lived for several days after he was shot, and towards the end, his wife started crying and screaming, “I want to go too! I want to go too!” And with his last measure of strength, McKinley turned to her and spoke his last words: “We are all going.”

“I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not f-ck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.”

Park from “Eleanor & Park” by Rainbow Rowell (the first one you’ll see often, because it’s one of my all-time faves)

“You can be Han Solo,” he said, kissing her throat. “And I’ll be Boba Fett. I’ll cross the sky for you.”

“I just meant that… I want to be the last person who ever kisses you, too…. That sounds bad, like a death threat or something. What I’m trying to say is, you’re it. This is it for me.”

“Holding Eleanor’s hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.”

Sam from “Hold Me Closer, Necromancer” by Lish McBride

“On top of all that, you’re naked. And while I’m going to hate myself for this later, could you put on some clothes? At least just for a little while, so I can think. Then you can go right back to being naked. All the time. With my full blessing.”

“I had an affinity for pandas. Something about clumsy vegetarians struck a chord with me.”

“No wonder I’d always felt lost. I actually was. The knowledge felt terrible, but in a strange way, it also felt good. Now I knew why I’d never connected to anything. Why I felt like I was outside the world around me, moving at a different speed from everyone else. That amputated piece of me explained everything, even why I’d failed at college. But that kind of blanket excuse can be dangerous. Crutches usually are.”

Sutter from “The Spectacular Now” by Tim Tharp

“Life is spectacular. Forget the dark things. Take a drink and let time wash them away to where ever time washes away to”

“She’s drenched and bedraggled, but I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love her right now. That’s how I know I’ll have to give her up.”

“She’s tired and leans her head on his shoulder, which is the resting place for all their heads, but when Justine and Siobhan and Francesca use his body so shamelessly he doesn’t feel the need to turn his head and press his mouth against their hair.”

“Once she made him watch Pride and Prejudice and for ages he would re-word Mr Bingley’s apology to Jane Bennet, saying, ‘I’ve been an inexplicable fool’, for anything from losing his keys to burping out loud. Her reply to anything she wanted to do was Jane Bennet’s response to Bingley’s marriage proposal, ‘A thousand times yes.”

“Later, when they were almost asleep he had called out to her.
‘Finke?’
‘Yeah?’
‘We’ll make a great team. You plant. I build”

and since we’re talking about Thomas, here’s a bonus set of quotes from his kindred spirit Adam, because, well, we love Adam!

Adam from “Where She Went” by Gayle Forman

“There are so many things that demand to be said. Where did you go? Do you ever think about me? You’ve ruined me. Are you okay? But of course, I can’t say any of that”

“But I’d do it again. I know that now. I’d make that promise a thousand times over and lose her a thousand times over to have heard her play last night or to see her in the morning sunlight. Or even without that. Just to know that she’s somewhere out there. Alive.”

“I look at her there in the shadows of the shut-down city, her hair falling onto her face, and I can see her trying to figure out if I’ve lost it. And I have to fight the urge to take her by the shoulders and slam her against a shuttered building until we feel the vibrations ringing through both of us. Because I suddenly want to hear her bones rattle. I want to feel the softness of her flesh give, to hear her gasp as my hip bone jams into her. I want to yank her head back until her neck is exposed. I want to rip my hands through her hair until her breath is labored. I want to make her cry and then lick up the tears. And then I want to take my mouth to hers, to devour her alive, to transmit all the things she can’t understand.”

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[…] authors and to kinda-sorta forget that there are awesome male authors too. We already celebrated male protagonists a while back on Monday Quotes, but this one is strictly dedicated to male authors, regardless of […]

Hello fellow book lovers! Teen Lit Rocks is run by Sandie Chen, a professional book reviewer and film critic. Our contributors are all adult women (librarians, educators, mothers) hailing from across the U.S. and Canada who love to read YA. We support diversity in teen literature and can't wait to discuss our recommendations with you.